DISCLAIMER: This is not an endorsement of one company over another. This idea came from the State Farm “good neighbor” magazine spring/summer 2011 issue. Many insurance companies may have similar helpful publications for their Customers.

You can download the form here: grab and go checklist.

Extreme weather incidents can happen anywhere. If you have to leave your home because of an extreme weather incident or another unanticipated reason, there is always the chance you may not return to it as it was when you left it. You may not be able to recover anything and what you may have is what you had with you when you left. The above checklist is a starting point only.

Many experts recommend you transfer all of your important documents onto a thumb drive or onto a secure “off-site server.” Invariably, what people most miss after losing “everything” due to fires, tornadoes, floods, theft or hurricanes are their “memories.”

In the April 2011 issue of Reader’s Digest article entitled “5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Technology,” the author suggests:

“UPLOAD PHOTOS TO THE CLOUD to “insure (your photos) will be around no matter what happens to you PC (or your photo albums). There are many good, free choices … including Picassa, Google’s service. After your initial upload … you will have a full backup of your photo library.”

“BACK UP YOUR DATA With online backup services, you do not have to buy any equipment; you just install software, which sits on secure servers and runs in the background, regularly updating a mirror image of all your files.”

Remember the motto shared by the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts: “BE PREPARED!”